By The FirstMissouri Senator Josh Hawley is accusing Merrick Garland of lying under oath, claiming the Attorney General was not telling the truth when he said the FBI was not recruiting Catholics to serve as undercover informants against their fellow parishioners.
Garland issued three denials when questioned about the FBI’s recruitment of Catholic informants by Hawley during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.
“I went on to ask you whether the Department was ‘cultivating sources and spies in Latin mass parishes and other Catholic parishes around the country,’ Hawley recalled in a letter on Tuesday. “And again, your response could not have been clearer: ‘No, the Justice Department does not do that. It does not do investigations based on religion.'”
“All of this was false, as recent investigative findings by the House Judiciary Committee show,” Hawley continued. The Missouri Senator went on to explain that a heavily redacted document recently obtained by the committee shows that “the FBI does in fact have ‘informants aimed at Catholic churches,” and that the FBI “contemplated ‘engag[ing] in outreach to the leadership’ of the Catholic traditionalist parishes, for the purpose of ‘sensitiz[ing] these congregations to the warning signs of radicalization and [enlisting] their assistance to serve as suspicious activity tripwires.'”
“Let’s be clear: your Department has decided to turn Catholic congregations into front organizations for the FBI, and when asked about it, you’ve decided to fudge the truth before Congress,” Hawley added. “This is an unconscionable assault on American Catholics’ First Amendment rights and an abdication of your duty to enforce the law without fear or favor.”
Senator Hawley called on Garland to provide answers on how many agents DOJ would “work with or otherwise employ” at both Catholic parishes and “in religious organizations more broadly.”
Check out Senator Hawley’s full letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland below: